


The Chamber

by goat_dono



Series: Inner Worlds|Shūhei [3]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-17
Updated: 2012-05-17
Packaged: 2017-11-05 13:10:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/406742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goat_dono/pseuds/goat_dono
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the fateful Hollow attack that killed his classmates, Shūhei is forced to confront the lethal source of his despair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

わが宿の いささ群竹 吹く風の 音のかそけき この夕かも

wa ga yado no  
isasa muratake  
fuku kaze no  
oto no kasokeki  
kono yūhe kamo

_Around my house,  
through the small bamboo grove,  
blows a breath of wind.  
I hear it whisper faintly  
in the gathering twilight._

_Man'yōshū_ ("Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves") Book 19 No. 4291  
by Ōtomo no Yakamochi

~xXx~

It had always fascinated him, how perfectly the open _shōji_ of his quarters framed the harvest moon. What a shame, that the work of so talented an architect would soon be marred by such an unfortunate scene. He smiled gently to himself and raised his left hand to stroke the dark scars slashing down his once handsome face. His fingers grazed the sunken lid of his eviscerated eye, still plagued by phantom images and sensations.

In his right hand, he held a brush.

Shūhei sat still in the pooled moonlight, the unmounted blade of his sword wound in his white silk obi and laid reverently on the floor by his side. He stared down at the square sheet of mulberry paper before him, the brush poised in midair, studying the verses he'd rendered in his elegant calligraphy. The last character was complete, the strokes properly placed and accurate. All that remained was for him to sign his name.

Fighting tears, arm trembling from strain, he held the brush.

~xXx~

Shūhei knew that things change. It's easy to understand the concept of impermanence, just damn hard to live with it. Less than six months earlier, he'd been the most promising student in the Shinigami Academy. He had accompanied seated officers of the Gotei 13 on several missions to the human world. He was all but guaranteed to be offered a ranked position immediately upon graduation. His performance was so exceptional that his advisers chose him to lead a special exercise entirely unsupervised. Such was the level of trust the Academy had in his abilities.

He had failed.

The blood of nine classmates was on his hands. Although all the underclassmen had escaped unharmed, his assistants and his entire advance squad had been butchered by Hollows. He had hand-picked the most exceptional senior students in the entire Academy; they had trusted and respected him, and he'd gotten them killed. It didn't matter that no one could explain why so many huge Hollows unexpectedly appeared. As the leader of the expedition, he was responsible for the life of every participant.

Silently, he'd borne hateful slander from the other students, shunning and avoidance by the faculty, and threats of reprisal from family members masking their grief as hostility. He remembered how Aoga's little sister, a talented fourth-year, broke down in his arms at the memorial. Aoga had been the girl's only family. He knew how it felt to suddenly find yourself alone in the world, all of your loved ones gone in an instant. But he never imagined the despair of being _responsible_ for so many tragic deaths.

He'd survived. Even if those three underclassmen hadn't come to his aid, he would have survived. He was fast enough to escape, skilled enough to have held the Hollows off until help arrived.

Undeservedly, he kept his life, and lost his eye instead.

The skin of his face was easy to repair. The slashes were almost surgically precise and not very deep. His eye, however, could not be saved. The surgeons assured him that enough structure remained to support a perfectly realistic ocular prosthesis, but he declined. An eye that could not see seemed pointless to him.

He petitioned the Twelfth Division to design a functioning artificial eye for him, and received a prompt and very blunt response — only ranked officers of the Gotei 13 were eligible to be restored with such advanced technology.

With only one eye, Shūhei's depth perception was disrupted to the extent that he could no longer skillfully wield his sword. His strength, reflexes and instincts were intact, but he had lost his _ma-ai_ — the essential understanding of distance between oneself and the opponent. Without ma-ai, he could neither place nor parry an attack. He was no longer safe for other students to spar with, not even with bokken. He voluntarily isolated himself from his workout group, reduced to practicing _kata_ alone.

Less than a week after the extent of his impairment became apparent, he was called to the administrative offices. Numb and speechless, he stood before the advisory committee and was duly informed that while his skills were not in doubt, his injury obligated the Gotei 13 to postpone his assignment review.

 _But if I received an assignment,_ he thought bitterly, _the Twelfth Division would restore my eye._

Predictably, he took to drowning his sorrows. During one long night in an obscure Rukon dive, he met a gigai scientist from the Twelfth named Akon, who was drunk enough to tell him the real reason he'd been turned down for a new eye. It seemed the current Captain did not have the ability to make fully and accurately functioning neurological components. The previous captain could have given Shūhei perfect vision in a matter of days, but he had committed capital crimes and fled the death penalty, taking his expertise with him. They could maybe find that guy, mused Akon, and get him to fabricate an eye for Shūhei from black market parts, but the sudden, unexplained restoration of his vision would spell certain exile or execution for them both.

So, for Shūhei, everything had changed. He managed to graduate despite multiple failures on his final exams, and accepted a position as an assistant kidō instructor at the Academy. His once effortlessly wielded katana collected dust upon its stand. In his frustration, he found himself regressing to his childhood pastime of throwing stones, using his keen hearing to hone in on a bird or squirrel chittering in a tree and bringing it down with one deadly shot. It was a good trick, and it impressed the girls. But his close-range perception remained unreliable, and his kenjutsu deteriorated for lack of sparring partners. He continued to be ostracized by his Academy peers. No matter how much he drank, he couldn't block out the nightmares and flashbacks, and the horrifying phantom visions. He began to feel that life had become too difficult to live.

After all, what use is a Shinigami unable to wield a Zanpakutō?

~xXx~

Closing his good eye to the witnessing moon, he lowered his hand and let the familiar strokes of his name flow onto the paper. Slowly, deliberately, he placed the brush in the holder and shouldered off his _shitagi,_ letting it drop to the floor behind him. Out in the courtyard the night breeze freshened, rattling the shōji and making him shiver a little. He grasped his sword by the wrapped blade and the tang and laid the point just to the left of his navel.

It went in so easy, the glimmering steel splitting his smooth skin and sliding into his belly inch by inch. The explosion of pain was far greater than he'd imagined, but he did not waver. His head lolled back as he pushed the blade in deeper. It was intensely satisfying, almost _pleasurable,_ relieving one kind of pain by inflicting another. Soon this failed attempt at an afterlife would end and his soul would be free to start over. A soft moan mingled with the whispers of the wind and the blade in his flesh.

Morbidly curious, he opened his eye and looked down at the grim scene before him. The parchment square was blood-splattered but still legible. His hands began to tremble, and his grip was weakening fast. He fought the nausea welling up inside by trying to concentrate on the _jisei_ he'd written, but a sudden, awful realization struck his mind like a bullet. Slumping forward, he yanked the blade sideways and out and laughed derisively as his insides obliterated his words.

_Fuck, you fucking idiot, sitting and dreaming, you damn f-fool. . .w-wrote your own f-fuck. . .fuckin' name wrong. . .'s too late now. . .doesn't matter. . .anyway. . .th'fuck. . .d'zat even mean. . .wind. . .w-wind death_

“Ka. . .ze. . .shi?”

Within his ma-ai, on his blind side, a blade sang. He felt a fleeting impact to the back of his neck, and the moon and the blood and the parchment vanished into darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

_Over all people have I surrendered thee the power, said God to the Angel of Death, only not over this one which has received freedom from death through the Law._

Midrash Tanḥuma

~xXx~

_One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed._

Revelation 13:3 

~xXx~

He staggers and reels, overcome by vertigo, and collapses against the clammy wall; he scrabbles along it unsteadily, dragging his strange, improvised weapon by the chain.

The remains of his latest victim, decapitated and dismembered, lie in the patch of moonlight that falls through the barred window high in the vaulted ceiling. A lake of dark blood slowly spreads around the corpse.

Eventually, he reaches the massive door set into one end of the vast stone chamber. The other end of the protracted space simply vanishes into the distance, cloaked in an absolute, impenetrable darkness that he does not dare explore. He slumps down with his back against the rough oakwood planks and stares apprehensively at the body.

He hates this place. Time moves almost imperceptibly here, with little difference between night and day. The only temporal marker is the harvest moon, which appears, framed by the high, barred window, every year on the night of his death.

His _birth._

He has been interred here for over fifty years, plagued by terrifying illusions and bouts of unbearable vertigo, and a persistent, irresistible compulsion to kill. Despite his seeming captivity, it is a simple matter for him to leap up and slip like mist through the bars, and he does, whenever his murderous urges overtake the restraint of his fear.

Sometimes, when he passes through, he emerges in shadow lands— imaginary places that bear no resemblance to reality; planes of dubious existence composed entirely of colors, or sensations, or nothing at all. But other times, he finds himself in a familiar, squalid district in the south of Rukongai, a dire predator invisible in the gloom of a chilly autumn night.

His preference is for children, of which there is no shortage in the district; they are weak, and easily overlooked, and he steals them away to slaughter, discarding their mutilated bodies in back alleys and trash pits. But no matter how many he takes he is never sated, because his prey is not Human, and only Human deaths can appease his lust.

He longs to return to the world of the Living, where once he stood upon high places and reveled at the desolation left in his wake. He remembers who he is, and the one he serves; he recalls the wails of Human sorrow at his approach, their prayers and pleas, their sacrifices in exchange for the lives of their offspring.

There are beings in this world that are drawn to him because he remembers such things, and they covet his memories. But he cannot comprehend them, no matter how intently he watches, and schemes, and imagines. And so, he is caught off-guard when the gaunt figure stumbles unexpectedly out of the endless void, clutching a naked blade. He panics, and strikes it down without thought or warning.

His scythe bites deep at the base of the skull, and lodges in vertebrae; he wrenches it free and lops off both arms before the body even hits the ground. Then he stumbles back and cowers, trembling with agitation, until he is confident that the intruder is dead.

Instantly he is overcome by something he has never experienced; a horrifying sense of his own mortality, like a suicide that has crossed the point of no return. He sprawls weakly against the door, eyes fixed on the moonlit expanse of blood. It is his nature to kill. Why does this death affect him so strangely?

Inside. There is something inside. Soundlessly, it calls out to him, and it is all he can hear.

It speaks his name, bringing him abruptly to his senses, and he leaps forward to snatch up the right arm, cleanly amputated mid-humerus. The marrow is luminescent, and from it curls a glimmering, opaline tendril. He touches the enticing substance and it tickles his finger like a maddening itch. 

It is pure _reishi,_ the robust spiritual essence of a _buranku,_ a vagrant Human soul, and suddenly he knows: _this_ is what he needs to escape the torturous delusion of his unnatural existence. This is what he can use to manifest a physical form and pass back into the Living world. 

Greedily he consumes the substance, inhaling it like a delicious scent, clutching at the moonbeams in which it swirls like poisonous smoke. It fills him just as eagerly, quickly suffusing his entire being, and sends an explosion of indescribable agony tearing through his belly like the blade of a sword. He throws down the limb and falls to his knees, and screams with laughter at the pain, delighted by the realness of sensations that he has not known for so long.

His form solidifies, not into flesh, but something scintillating and volatile, like the glowing embers of a smoldering wildfire, needing only a breath of wind to ignite its fury. But it is real, tangible, and with it he can cross over; once again he will rise, the spirit of Destruction, bringer of drought and madness, and stretch forth his blade to reap the lives of Men.

But first— he must escape this chamber.

Now burdened by mass, he can no longer leap effortlessly up to the high window. He hurls himself at the heavy door and hammers his new-formed fists against the rough-hewn wood. The pounding forms a terrifying cacophony with his screeching laughter, but the door does not open.

In his growing frenzy of pain and frustration he doesn't notice the ghostly filaments that drift from the severed spine of the corpse, the gentle cascade of fluid flesh that burbles from the stumps of its arms. He laughs and screams, and the sound masks the faint whisper of re-composition; his voice reverberates on the stone walls and obscures the tingle of reiatsu charging the air. Behind him, the tendrils grow thicker and more solid; the neck regenerates, head and torso drawn together by ethereal threads. Swiftly, silently, the body becomes whole again.

It is the smell that finally alerts him; the essence of life, so alien in this place as to be unrecognizable. He spins about and shrieks in astonished recognition, flickering and shimmering as his tangible reality falters.

 _No!_ he shouts. _It can't be!_

The emaciated figure of a teenage boy clambers to its feet, stretches, and yawns, as if waking from a pleasant nap. His body is filthy but undamaged, except for radiant scars that neatly encircle his arms and neck and cross his belly, and his right eye, which is blind. He has not aged in the fifty-odd years since they last saw one another.

“Ruaḥ ha-Mashḥit,” the boy calls in a clear, quiet voice.

The sound of his name is so lovely, so beguiling, but he knows that spoken by those lips it means only danger. The boy holds up a pike-mounted _kusarigama,_ with two blades set in opposition. His eyes follow the long black chain as it snakes across the floor from the boy's hand to the end of his own weapon, now identically double-bladed, and lying just out of his reach.

His mind screams for him to lunge for it, but his intent is easily read. Faster than thought, the boy yanks his weapon away and suddenly looms over him, staring down with his single, steely eye.

A shock of indescribable emotion overwhelms him as he realizes the scrawny youth possesses the masterful flash step of a _Shinigami,_ and when he moves, his body sings like a blade.

The boy grabs a fistful of his swirling hair and roughly hoists him up against the door, his feet just clear of the ground, and drives the pike through his chest into the wood, impaling him in place. He falls limp, panting helplessly with pain and fear, black blood running down his legs.

 _Help me, Azra'il,_ his heart whispers.

The boy flashes a malevolent smile.

“In the manner of your revelation, I, Twice-born, who hath charge concerning you, will gather you up and afterward return you unto your Creator.”

The second double-bladed scythe loops forward in a long, arcing cut, slashing through him like a blast of wind, and the tenuous form, the rogue soul, and the exquisite agony of being all vanish in an instant.

~xXx~

His chance bid for freedom lost, he fills the fetid air with a terrible, keening wail of anguish that is abruptly silenced by a hand that grips him by the throat. The boy jerks the pike out of his chest and shoves him contemptuously to the floor, where he lies, drained of both the stolen reishi and his own. After some time, he crawls into a dark corner and huddles there, clutching his head in a vain attempt to regain his equilibrium.

His tormentor stands in the pool of moonlight, examining the blades of the twin kusarigama, and speaks without looking at him.

"It's been long time, hasn't it, demon."

_Dvija—_

“That's not my name anymore.”

His shrill voice trails off into a whispered query, the answer to which he already knows. 

_Why are you still alive?_

The boy's cold eye fixes on him, and he feels, fleetingly, as though his very thoughts are visible.

“You have no idea where you are, do you?”

_I know you brought me here. You trapped me and put me in this prison._

"Prison?" A derisive snort serves as punctuation; a gesture indicates the emptiness that swallows the far end of the chamber. "You think this is a prison? One with walls that don't close and a door with no lock? This isn't a prison, demon, this is my inner world. This is the stronghold beneath the fortress of my consciousness. All these years, you've been lurking in the darkness of my soul, fueling my despair and waiting for a moment of weakness that you could take advantage of, right?" 

The scornful words are heavily and carefully restrained. The boy knows that he is bolstered by malice, that enmity is the source of all his power. He senses the boy's vigilance and begins to feel more bold; crouching lower in the shadowy corner, he watches for a chance to attack. 

_I thought I would go mad in here without the lifeblood of Humans. It is my nature to kill, Dvija!_

“That is not my name, demon.”

_It was your name. Dvija Šutej, I remember it. I remember everything about you, Twice-born. I still possess your Human mind._

A long silence passes as the words sink in.

 _"You_ remember? You— the nightmares— "

He feels the air expectantly for a hostile response to his revelation, but there is no anger, only sadness.

"You kept them, didn't you. You kept my memories and brought them into this world. You arrogant fool. Do you know what will happen to me if someone finds out I remember my past life?"

_I-I don't care. I can't stand the hunger. I have to go back to the world of the Living._

“No. You are a murderous abomination.”

 _What?_ He threw back his head and shrieked with laughter. _An abomination? Me? I'm the one who found you when you were just another hapless orphan wandering the ruins! I gave you the resourcefulness to survive and the courage to join the nationalists and fight for your people! And when you died, I carried the flame of memory into your soul so you would not lose your strength! And you call me an abomination? You owe everything to me, Dvija!_

"I don't owe you anything. You're no savior. You used me as as an instrument of death when I was just an innocent child. All the killings, the rapes, the torture— you did those things. You seized my mind and used my body, you forced me to be your accomplice. You thought my soul would be condemned to Hell for the things you made me do, and then your master would cut you free and send you back to the fields of war.

"But I was in my right mind when I died. You never took me over completely, and your foolish pride kept you from giving me up as an overly difficult target. That was your fundamental mistake— you never considered the tenacity of my sense of justice. You can't even fathom my determination to prevent you from re-entering the Living world and destroying the minds and lives of Humans, because I have free will, demon, and you do not."

_Let me go, Dvija. Either let me go, or kill me._

“I can't.”

_Why?_

“I bound you to my soul. That's why you were dragged along when I was sent here. If I kill you it would destroy us both, and I've already lost enough because of you. My home, my family, my sanity, my life— I refuse to lose my soul as well.

“I will keep you bound for the term of my existence in this realm. And when I die my second death, I will carry you into the Dangai and trap you in the Kōryū for all eternity. You are the guilty one, and I will never forgive you.”

_I don't care about your forgiveness. I'll break free, somehow._

“So what if you do? You won't get far, now that I'll be watching you.”

_A moment of freedom is better than an eternity stuck in here. I'm so hungry, Dvija. I know you feel this hunger, too. You can't hide it. I know you want vengeance on whoever lured those hollows to your squad._

He hears a catch of breath; he feels the spark of animosity that flares in the boy's heart and knows that he has reached him.

_Oh, yes. I was there with you that night. I could have helped you then, just like I can help you now. I can give you the power to find who did it and punish them. But you'll never have justice unless you set me free._

“I'll never set you free.”

_That weapon you're holding— it's mine. I made it. But it changed when you touched it. It changed 'cause it's part of you, it was conceived inside your soul. The essence of that weapon is duplicity. Deception. It looks like it has a short range, but its true effect is realized at a distance. It's impossible to predict its motion, like a swallow in flight. With a weapon like that, you'd never be at a disadvantage. If you let me go, I'll give it to you. I'll give you the strength and the skill to wield it._

“I don't want to wield it.”

_Really? You were ready to die because you lost your skill with the sword._

“I'm still ready to die. I don't fear death.”

 _You lie, Dvija. You fear death more than anything. You fear death because it comes to the innocent and the undeserving, the helpless. You fear the deaths of_ those who should live. _And, you fear me, because I serve the Destroyer. That's why you despise me. To stand by and bear witness to my work is beyond your ability to endure, even though you know that death is part of life, that killing is my nature and my sanction. You keep me here, restrict me from serving my purpose, out of pure cowardice._

“The fact remains, demon, that this is a different world. Here, you don't have any purpose.”

_You're wrong. My purpose has become very clear. You see, I'm the only hope you have to redeem yourself. If you want to be a Shinigami, your pious devotion to justice and protecting the innocent isn't enough. In order to survive, you're gonna need the ruthlessness of a predator. You'll have to embrace the urge to kill, just like you did in the Living world. You'll have to be willing to sacrifice everything in pursuit of your target. You'll never be able to do all that without me._

He regards his opponent brazenly from across the sepulchral space. The boy is still firmly in control of his anger, but his downcast eyes reveal a solemn resignation. He holds up the double-bladed scythes, glinting in the moonlight.

"I will never free you. Never. But I'll take your weapon, and I'll give you a choice in exchange. You can stay down here, or you can inhabit these blades."

 _Inhabit— the blades?_ For a moment, he is startled, distrustful. _If I do it...does that mean...y-you'll take me to the world of the Living? You'll use me for vengeance?_

"If I'm assigned to a Division, if I get sent to the Human world, if the situation warrants it, then yeah, I guess so." 

_Swear it, Dvija._

“I already told you, that is no longer my name.”

_What is your name, then?_

“Hisagi Shūhei.”

He laughs. _All the old meaning is lost, I see. All right, swear to me,_ Hisagi Shūhei, _that you'll honor your words. Swear to me that if I submit to you in the guise of this weapon, you'll release me to serve my true purpose. Swear that you'll honor the will of my Creator, who made me an agent of Death._

Stepping up to the door, the boy gently presses his hand against the ancient planks. With a rumble the huge portal opens just a crack, and lines of silvery moonlight appear around its edges. The boy peers intently through the slit between the door and its frame for a long moment before replying.

"I swear it. But you remember this. If you ever attempt to escape, or take control, or influence my mind in any way, I will sacrifice my own soul to utterly destroy you, without a second thought."

He attends solemly as the intimidating words echo into silence, and then his face breaks into a furtive smirk. _Open the door, Hisagi Shūhei,_ he whispers, invisible in the shadows. 

_Open the door and free us both._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "In the manner of your revelation..." is a paraphrase of Sura 32:11, the Qu'ran
> 
>  _Azra'il_ \- an angel of Death  
>  _Dvija_ \- "twice born," a high-caste Vedic follower whose life is governed by karma, also a Sanskrit given name  
>  _ha-Mashḥit_ \- the Destroyer, an angel of Death, killer of the first-born of Egypt (Exodus 12:23)  
>  _kusarigama_ \- chain sickle  
>  _ruaḥ_ \- wind, spirit  
>  _Šutej_ \- Croatian surname


	3. Chapter 3

うつせみの 世は常なしと 知るものを 秋風寒み 偲ひつるかも

utsusemino  
yo ha tsunena shito  
shiru monowo  
akikaze samumi  
shino hitsurukamo

_I know  
this cicada-shell life is  
evanescent,  
yet when the autumn wind blows cold,  
I long for her._

_Man'yōshū_ (“Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves”)  
Book 3 No. 465  
by Ōtomo no Yakamochi

~xXx~

Shūhei lurched backward with a gasp, clutching desperately at his belly, but his hands found nothing other than his own unbroken flesh. 

He was still seated before the open doorway of his quarters, his writing tools and the paper on which he had composed his jisei just barely visible under the lightening sky. The lines seemed different than how he remembered them, but then again, he wasn't sure he remembered writing them at all. Laboriously he stood up, aching and weak as though he hadn't moved for days, and fumbled to light the lamp.

It was then that he noticed the sword.

He grabbed it, clutched it tightly with both hands. He had never touched a Zanpakutō before. It startled him how thrilling it was to feel its spirit, to feel _himself,_ integrally a part of it, but that awareness was tempered by a pang of revulsion when he realized the long strip of silk wound around the dully gleaming _saya_ was his own obi, stiff and dark with dried blood.

The sword's furnishings were plain but fine quality, with dark blue _tsuka-ito_ and an octagonal, blackened iron _tsuba._ Slowly, he drew the Zanpakutō and sighted along its length. His _asauchi_ had been a low-grade student weapon, poorly forged, but this blade bore the fine, wood-like grain of skillfully folded carbon steel. The flawless edge was beveled to razor thinness, without the slightest distortion, and a meandering _hamon_ swirled over it like a breath of wind. It was shorter and straighter than it had been, the balance point perfectly placed. When he raised it over his shoulder, it felt as light and dynamic as a _shuriken,_ and he resisted a sudden, compelling urge to throw it.

It was called _Kaze-shini._

In his mind, the name evoked the deranged, screeching laughter of the demon that empowered the blade; a stark reminder that his subconscious yearning for revenge had led him to so casually form an alliance with a servant of the angel of Death.

Memories of the hollow incident overtook his thoughts. He recalled the otherworldly shrieks echoing through the deserted streets as he stumbled about in blind agony, choking on mouthfuls of his own blood. He crooked three fingers and drew them down the prominent lines that slashed his face from hairline to chin, lingering over his sightless eye.

_It had blades for claws. Blades made for killing._

_Blades just like mine._

His fingers trailed down further, under his jaw, to touch the thin scar ringing his neck. Reaching across, he brushed them over an identical scar encircling his upper arm.

_I thought my soul's only desire was to protect, and here it turns out what I really crave is vengeance. Shit. I'm more dangerous with this bizarre shikai than I was swinging half blind._

Not that it mattered.

The sword was still drawn in his hand. He raised it and searched for his reflection in the cold steel, but found himself unable to meet his own gaze.

_They won't even hesitate to assign me now. They'll probably put me in one of the combat divisions, and I'll spend the rest of my life stepping over the bodies of my friends._

Once again, everything had changed.

Releasing the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, Shūhei sheathed the sword, lay it before him, and bowed to it, respectfully. Reaching out, he traced its length with his fingertips before moving it to his right side, blade inward; a sword so positioned cannot easily be drawn, and threatens only its wielder. Out in the bamboo grove, the wind rattled angrily at the passive provocation.

An oddly peaceful feeling settled over him; the misery and anguish of the past several months faded to a distant ache. Before him, the square of mulberry paper fluttered and drifted, and he had just time to scan the lines once more before it was borne away on the freshening breeze.

> _Killing wind, sounding  
>  Through the moonlit night;  
>  Take my life and forsake the pain, the taste of blood, the stench of death  
>  And all that I see in the dark reflection  
>  of my true self._

> _Killing wind, silent  
>  In the darkness before dawn;  
>  Spare my life and free the shadow  
>  of my tortured soul._

His gaze soft, his mind clear, Shūhei sat quietly until the tempest subsided, and the first light of morning spilled through the open shōji to reveal the outer world, calm and still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _asauchi_ \- nameless Zanpakutō  
>  _hamon_ \- “blade pattern,” the visual effect created by differentially hardening a blade's edge  
>  _saya_ \- sheath  
>  _shuriken_ \- small, easily concealed throwing weapon  
>  _tsuba_ \- hand guard separating the blade and the hilt  
>  _tsuka-ito_ \- flat-woven cord used to wrap the tsuka (hilt)

**Author's Note:**

>  _jisei_ \- death poem  
>  _kata_ \- choreographed movements for practicing techniques  
>  _shitagi_ \- under-kimono  
>  _shōji_ \- sliding latticework door


End file.
